Leann McLaren, University of Connecticut

Leann Mclaren is a political science and history double major at the University of Connecticut, in the honors program. She serves as the vice president of the University of Connecticut’s chapter of the NAACP, as well as on the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Leadership Board. A Dean’s List and New England Scholar, her research interests center on the effects of racial bias in congressional legislative proceedings and how this may affect policy making. Over the course of her undergraduate career, Leann has been able to accumulate a good deal of research experience, as she has assisted on several projects facilitated by university faculty, including homicide and sex trafficking on women of color, gender bias in congressional hearings, and archival research on Caribbean immigration. She also has many internship experiences, including at the University of Maine School of Law’s Pre-law Undergraduate Scholars Program, and her current role as a congressional intern in the United States House of Representatives, in the office of Congressman John B. Larson. Leann also has a passion for volunteer work as she has been on several alternative break service trips, including to Birmingham Alabama, and at Right2know, a civil rights organization, as a part of her study abroad trip to Cape Town, South Africa. Leann hopes to receive a doctoral degree in political science and teach at the university level.

Jasmine B. King, Jackson State University

Jasmine B. King is a junior at Jackson State University majoring in political science. Since her freshman year, Jasmine has conducted research under the direction of Dr. Byron Orey at her Jackson State. Though the research that she participates in addresses the psycho-physiological reactions of African Americans in response to police violence, her current research interests focus on the effects of race, gender, and class inequalities on political behavior. Having a good deal of experience in research, Jasmine has presented research at conferences such as the Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Student Research Conference and the Emerging Researchers National Conference. Jasmine plans to enter a dual degree program to earn a juris doctorate and a doctoral degree in Political Science.

From speaking to community groups to liaising with the media and briefing policymakers, political scientists share their work with non-academic audiences in diverse ways. In this new interview series from APSA’s Public Engagement Program, APSA members discuss how and why they engage in the public arena and offer their tips for successful engagement. For more information, including resources on engagement and a sign-up sheet for APSA’s Experts Database, visit the APSA Public Engagement Program home page.

The Center for American Women and Politics partnered with the Barbara Lee Family Foundation to launch Presidential Gender Watch in 2016. The groups recently launched an expanded initiative, Gender Watch 2018, to “track, analyze, and illuminate gender dynamics in election 2018.” APSA spoke with Kelly Dittmar, the project director, an assistant professor of political science at Rutgers-Camden, and scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics. This interview is lightly edited for length and clarity.

How did Presidential Gender Watch and Gender Watch 2018 come to be?

Dittmar: At the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), we’d always done “Election Watch” as a page on our website where we would track the numbers of women candidates and major news articles about women running in the election cycle. It was very basic and, in addition to our data, included news highlights we captured along the way.

… I really believed in the [CAWP] mission, which is to enhance women’s political participation and to do so in a way that translates what we do in research into practice.”

In 2016 we were able to build that out into a bigger project called Presidential Gender Watch. We were able to do that because of the support we received from the Barbara Lee Family Foundation. After 2016, they were happy with the results and our partnership and, thankfully, they approached us about doing it again in 2018. There’s so much news about the role of gender and women running in this cycle, so we said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it!’ So we’re doing round two.

The Barbara Lee Family Foundation has been a longtime supporter of the Center. We’ve partnered in numerous ways. They’ve supported some of our research and we have supported some of their research on women in gubernatorial races. That allowed us to establish a strong working relationship. So when it came to this larger project, the partnership was natural.

How did you determine the right tone and audience for the project?

Dittmar: We want to translate academic research and expertise to a broad public and media audience. Part of our role is connecting with those who are telling the story in mainstream media and being sure that they are paying attention to the research that is already out there. We want to make sure the research is translated in ways that reporters can understand and apply it to what is happening right now.

The greatest success of Presidential Gender Watch was that we developed a strong following among reporters, the public writ large, and especially our scholarly community of folks who were interested observers and contributors.”

That approach to research has always been my focus. Throughout my time as a graduate student, I worked for CAWP because I really believed in the mission, which is to enhance women’s political participation and to do so in a way that translates what we do in research into practice. That’s always been my orientation to research: if we’re doing it, what’s the real world effect? How can you reach as many people as possible?

What lessons did you take away from Presidential Gender Watch?

Dittmar: One: there’s an audience for this. The greatest success of Presidential Gender Watch was that we developed a strong following among reporters, the public writ large, and especially our scholarly community of folks who were interested observers and contributors.

Another thing we learned is that this is a viable approach to doing research translation in real time. We learned about what works and what doesn’t. One way we get more scholars engaged is to do short “hot takes.” After debates in the presidential election, I’d write to our list-serv of scholars and say ‘Does anybody have one to two paragraphs of a reaction based on what happened last night?” The responses were great and people wrote back very quickly. It wasn’t hard-core research, but it was research-informed.

Merging the longer analyses and short-term analyses will help us get the word out there about relevant research and highlight our experts.

We also learned the value of getting more people involved. Last time we had seven guest experts, and this time we built it out to 11 scholars and practitioners who contribute to the project. It’s another opportunity for us to have more diverse expertise on our team. These are people doing all sorts of different research that add key dimensions to the project. Someone like Anna Sampaio can provide her insights on immigration and the intersections there with gender and electoral politics, while Wendy Smooth might write about black women candidates in 2018. There are a lot of stories to tell.

Watching all the races in 2018 is a huge undertaking. How do you handle such a large scope?

Dittmar: That’s something we couldn’t practice for in Presidential Gender Watch, so we’re in somewhat uncharted territory. With my colleagues at CAWP, we’re monitoring as many races as we can. We’re looking broadly. To some extent, our experts will be watching races in the states where they are based, or ones that interest them depending on their expertise. They’ll be our eyes and ears on the ground. I also have research assistants who are following individual states so that we have all 50 states covered. If I spot things, I’ll share with contributors and our broader audience.

No one can capture everything that’s happening. We’re very careful to make clear we’re not covering everything and anything. We’ll capture what we can, and provide the value-added of doing so with particular attention to gender and intersectional dynamics in campaigns nationwide.

Gender Watch 2018 has a strong social media presence. How do you find it useful?

Dittmar: This was a lesson we learned from last time. During Presidential Gender Watch, we had a website with a curated news feed that included articles about gender or raised gendered issues. I loved that newsfeed! We had it categorized and tagged, but we realized that not a lot of people were going directly to the website. Most of our followers were getting our curated news and even analyses via Twitter. So this time, when we were planning how our website would look and where our primary means of communication would be, it seemed that social media would be the place to really capture people. Of course, that brings people to the website for longer pieces. That’s where we reach people, even the media. We also put out a newsletter for people who aren’t on social media or perhaps prefer a more curated presentation. We’re going to try and do that biweekly.

Be confident in the amount of expertise you bring to the table. Whether or not it’s the topic of your dissertation, if you are a student of American politics you have something important to offer to these conversations.”

You have extensive experience providing commentary in news media. What advice would you give to a fellow political scientist interested in engaging with media?

Dittmar: I have several recommendations. The first is gendered piece of advice. We often find that women are more likely than men to turn down opportunities to comment and say they might not be the right person to comment on a certain issue. Be confident in the amount of expertise you bring to the table. Whether or not it’s the topic of your dissertation, if you are a student of American politics you have something important to offer to these conversations.

The second piece, in terms of sharing your expertise, is to remember to speak to that broader audience and think about how you can summarize arguments and thoughts in a way that is accessible. Sometimes what I’ll do before I get on the phone is ask a reporter what they want to know; I’ll jot down ideas about how I can answer them in a clear and simple way. That way I also prevent myself from rambling on about the data and research, but still know that my responses are grounded in them. Quite a bit of it is just practice and being willing to talk to more reporters and thinking about what will fit in or contribute to their piece. Most of the time, they’re only going to take a sentence or two, so you have to pack in what you want to say as succinctly as possible. Sometimes I’m better at it than others.

I’ve also had help and done training with the Women’s Media Center. The group of scholars at New Research on Gender and Political Psychology have also provided media training at their conferences. Scholars Strategy Network also offers some support in that regard, and APSA has also provided resources on public engagement. All of those outlets are willing to help and give you tips and guidance.

To other scholars I’d say, ‘Please, more of you do it!’ because I wouldn’t mind getting fewer media calls. More seriously, though, I want to make sure that more expert voices, especially women’s, are out there to inform our public dialogue on politics and elections. That’s a major goal of Gender Watch 2018, and I’m proud every time that our work helps to shape stories and provide research context for what’s happening this year.

Flavio Jimenez, San Francisco State University

Flavio Jimenez is a junior attending San Francisco State University, majoring in political science and minoring in Classical Archaeology. Mr. Jimenez was raised by politically active parents from El Salvador, who have been supportive of his desire to become a political activist. Born and raised In San Francisco, Flavio has been involved with various local organizations including, the Japanese National Honors Society, Meritus, and Minds Matter San Francisco. Flavio has been actively involved within the community in order to help the residents of San Francisco. Along with volunteering for these organizations, Flavio has also had the opportunity to Intern for the incumbent mayor of San Francisco, Mark Farrell. These experience have all contributed to the development of Flavio’s aspirations in becoming a United Nations Ambassador. Through the Ralph Bunche Summer institute, he hopes to gain knowledge and analytical skills that will allow him to succeed in a graduate political science program.

Michael Herndon, University of Nebraska at Omaha

Michael Herndon is a rising senior and first-generation Chicano college student at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). Michael is double majoring in political science and International Affairs with a minor in Chicano-Latino Studies. A UNO Regents Scholar and Honors Student, Michael just completed a spring internship with Rep. Norma Torres (D-CA) on Capital Hill through the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. Michael has also interned with development team of the National Immigration Forum’s D.C. office. At UNO, Michael is involved with various cultural organizations. He has previously served as the president of UNO’s Multicultural Greek Council; has held various leadership positions within the Delta Beta Chapter of Sigma Lambda Beta International Fraternity Inc.; and is an active member of UNO’s Association of Latin American Students. Michael’s passion for Latin America runs deep and led him to do a summer abroad in Costa Rica to refine his Spanish language skills. Michael has won department-wide scholarships in both the UNO Political Science and International Studies departments and has been accepted into the 4+1 Political Science Program at UNO. This program will allow him to take political science graduate courses as an undergraduate in order to get a head start on his MS in political science. Michael has aspirations to get a second master’s degree or Ph.D. after graduating. He plans to pursue a career in diplomacy.

Aayana Ingram, Alabama A&M University

Aayana Ingram is a rising senior at Alabama A&M University. A Dean’s Scholar, her research interests focus on African American politics, ethics and the political attitudes of black students Historically Black College and University (HBCUs) compared to those who attend predominately white institutions (PWI). Last summer, for the second time in a row, Aayana had the opportunity to intern with the Department of Energy conducting research on bioenergy sustainability. She presented her research at the Southern Political Science Association (SPSA) conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. Aayana is heavily involved on campus as a member of the honors program, Miss Omega Psi Phi, and as the junior class senator in the Student Government Association. She uses these platforms to advocate for her student body on issues that are plaguing their institution. As a product of a historically black college, upon graduation Aayana hopes to earn a doctoral degree in political science, teach on the collegiate level and mentor young African American men and women.

Michelle Henderson, New York University

Michelle Henderson is a student at New York University majoring in politics and minoring in Linguistics. Michelle is an AmeriCorps member and team leader with Jumpstart, and is involved on campus with the Academic Achievement Program, the Organization of Black Women, and the NYU Politics Society. She has received scholarships through Americans Promoting Study Abroad and the Chinese Summer Language, Culture and Technology Initiative (CSLCT-I) which have allowed her to study Mandarin and clean energy in Beijing and Hangzhou, China. Michelle has presented her research in the Pomona College Chinese Department, and has translated United States citizenship application information into Mandarin through Scripps College in Claremont, California. Upon graduation, Michelle plans to return to China before coming back to the United States to pursue graduate study in international education policy and international human rights.

Alfredo Y. Hernandez, Loyola Marymount University

Alfredo Y. Hernandez is an honors student at Loyola Marymount University (LMU), majoring in political science with a minor in economics. A McNair Scholar, his research centers on how political theory can be harnessed to measure and inform local governments’ obligations to their minority constituents and what constitutes their ethical governance. At LMU, he is the editor-in-chief of Attic Salt, an interdisciplinary academic journal which services all 28 Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities campuses. He is also an active member of the MAGIS Service Organization, which works to address homelessness in Los Angeles by serving in homeless shelters and working with at-risk youth; Pi Sigma Alpha; and Alpha Sigma Nu. During the summer of his freshman year, Alfredo received an Honors Summer Research Fellowship to study how the Greek government has utilized cultural centers to combat their recession post-2008 Crisis—sparking his interest in researching abroad. He has also participated in the Hansard Scholars program, interning with the Offices of Alex Norris, MP in Parliament, while also studying at the London School of Economics. For that program, he wrote a dissertation on utilizing demographic data to predict MP rebellion. As a child of Mexican immigrants and a first-generation college student, he looks to become a professor of political theory and inspire more diverse voices to enter the field. He also hopes to be involved in local politics in his home city of Los Angeles.